The Bank Channel

We all know the SWOT acronym.

For those that don’t, it stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats, a useful framework to review your business’ future.

As you might, I split SWOT into 2 parts.

The internal view. When reviewing strengths and weaknesses, we do an internal review of the business, and work out what we’re good at, versus what we need to improve.

The external view. When reviewing opportunities and threats, we analyse the opportunities we see in a given market or space, as well as the threats other competitors or factors play that may negatively affect us.

As banks, we’re often looking at ourselves to understand our strengths and weaknesses, as well as other banks to see who takes opportunities and creates threats.

However, I feel that as an industry rather than as organisations, we’re great at understanding our strengths and weaknesses, but very poor at understanding our opportunities and threats.

When was the last time you wondered when Bank A was going to open near you, or Bank B was going to launch the same product as you, or you looked at their new website? Probably pretty recently.

But when was the last time you asked, Apple have so much $ in the bank, and outlets like Apple stores, iPhones, iPads and iTunes, that they could start a bank? Or what the combination of Microsoft, Nokia and Skype might mean?

When was the last time you asked whether your local telco is a potential partner or rival? When was the last time you compared the Amazon customer experience to the one your bank provides? When was the last time you pondered if you could tie up with Nike, BMW or Burberry to create something really special?

When did you get to the bottom of exactly how PayPal works, or how Square works, or how Xero works?

Sure, analyse yourself, even analyse other banks. Understand who is doing what. But don’t just match your competitors.

Put your head up a little higher, and you’ll see a vibrant environment of players, competitors, and markets that need your attention.

Photo – Incase, Flickr

These days, power means something different.

We used to live in an age of Power through Authority & Governance. But things are changing before our every eyes. The single, central and hierarchical structures of previous centuries are fast eroding in their control. Dictators are tumbled, governments and corporations are held accountable (to a point that’s possible), people are taking to the streets, and demanding like never before.

Now, we’re entering an age of Power through Relevance & Connection. People’s abilities to access and influence information, insight and each other has been as liberating for some communities as their actual freedom itself. The power of people connecting has creating huge underground and above ground movements that single points of power like a top heavy leadership structure cannot control.

How will your organisation harness this new seat of power?

Photo – Incase, Flickr

Last week, I sat in a Hilton hotel room, probably like you, glued to the stream of news coming from North Africa and the Middle East. The images of people in the street were intertwined with economic data and business headlines. Delicate diplomatic, cross-border and political manoeuvres were dancing hand in hand with the rough, ass grabbing groove of desperate citizens taking control, with love and passion pouring from their hearts, ideas and direction from their minds, hope and urgency from their mouths. As someone sitting in the comfort of a plush king single in multi-national chain, it may for compelling and contemplative viewing (as opposed to understandable and scary reality). I hope you felt the same.

Given what’s happening in the world, on so many dimensions, we all should be putting something forward right now. We should all be making some sort of commentary on what we think is happening, what we need to do, and how we think it might end, or simply segway into the next monumental moment in history. It’s our obligation to add to the debate. You can’t say you don’t have the means – the tools, the outlet, the opportunity – to do so.

What’s coming together here? I don’t want to say the words ‘perfect storm’ (guess I just did) – that implies some sort of catastrophic, uncontrollable act of god, where in reality, its mankind that is making these dramatic movements in history.

1. Consumer Economics
   The Global Financial Crisis may be one of the most critical moments in rebalancing our social structure. The consistent delivery of the financial system over 2+ decades through the 90s and 2000s meant that money was a given, simply something almost atmospheric, leading to complacency, abuse and misaligned priorities. Not just in Wall St traders and hedge fund managers. In us all. Losing our houses, second cars (and second houses), even our job security, perhaps has made us face ourselves in the mirror and question what fills our lives with happiness – objects, products, things; or experiences, interactions, relationships. The definition of money, value, cost, investment, I hope have changed forever. The definition of consumer economics – the system of supply, demand, exchange, value amongst individuals – has hopefully hit reboot.
2. Generational Change in many dimensions
   Poor old Gen Y. At once they are touted as the Generation Of Change, at the same time as being labelled as lazy sloths, sponging their parents for both money and esteem. They are harshly judged, for their time has yet to be realised. In the past, a youth movement made little more than a fly to swat away from the front door of Downing Street or the White House. Now, through genuine coordination, intent and sheer determination, they are shunting governments from their hibernation. It’s taken a Facebook generation (and a Google employee) to create huge change in places where suppression was a lifestyle, not a burden or curse. It’s taken young people to feel responsible for the important things in the world, whilst Gen X and older kick back into their comfort zone. They are to be commended, nurtured, and unleashed.
3. Technological Awesomeness
   Jobs-ian gadgetry bares a double edged sword – at once it bursts through technical complexity and connects us in a human and user centric way to reach information and other people that otherwise might have been left alone; at the same time, we chain ourselves to these devices as if it were a drip feeding stimulant. They are both what will set us apart, educate and elighten us; and will prove that we can often simply ‘plug into the system’, which is often controlled by others.
4. Redefinition of power
   I love Annual Reports. They’re like a current day version of a museum – complex and important information, corporate terminology, and best of all, headshots of important people. They show you who’s in power, at the same time, they make you wonder what they clearly know, and what you clearly don’t or ever will. Wikileaks has been a good reminder that the traditional power structures are but a thumbdrive away from deconstruction, from recalibration, from embarrassing justification. Long may this continue.

This is a blog about banking. About banking customer experience. But the world, in 2011, is changing rapidly, more than in the previous 10 years. Perhaps more than banks can handle.

Banks and organisations like it are the irresistible object; the large, solid thing slowly ploughing through the sand towards the future. The things above, and other trends and movements like it, are the unstoppable force, battering against convention, and demanding a better way.

Will banks understand that they are part of this tension, this change? Will they understand they at once are crucial players, as well as barriers? They are pillars of the economic community, yet have been somewhat responsible for recent turmoil. They are continuing with dependable stoicism, yet won’t put their head up to see the wave coming. They fight with each other for dominance, yet can’t see new models will most likely superseed some of them. They ‘understand customers’ yet do they really?

So now you need to ask yourself…

Are you working inside the irresistable object, or riding the wave of the unstoppable force?